Once upon a time,
sixth-grade research reports were delivered in monotone by fidgety
11-year-olds, standing alone in front of their classes and
occasionally pointing to crayon-illustrated posters.
At Fairfax County's Mantua
Elementary School, one of the most wired schools in the nation,
teams of sixth-graders recently showed how far the traditional
end-of-year presentation has come. There was still some awkward
reading, but the crude posterboard props had been replaced by a
technological extravaganza: a 30-inch television monitor,
closed-circuit cameras, recorded music, hand-held microphones and a
three-by-four-foot computer screen with cascading Web sites.
"The children find this perfectly normal and natural," said
Principal Jan-Marie Fernandez. Experts say one key to creating a
good school is acquiring a large number of computers and a good team
of teachers who know how to use them. Educators across the country
spent nearly $6 billion last year trying to do that, and the numbers
show the results.
Nationally, there is slightly more than 1 computer for every 5
students. The ratio of students to an Internet-connected computer is
almost as good — less than 8 to 1 — according to Market Data
Retrieval, a Shelton, Conn., research company.
But leaders of technologically advanced schools such as Mantua
say there is still much to do, particularly in training teachers to
use computers for something more than teaching how to use computers.
A recent survey by the newspaper Education Week said only 29
percent of students had teachers who used computers to explain
difficult concepts.
There are also annoying glitches and funding problems with
computer use in schools, not to mention a makeshift quality that
recalls early automobiles, with state-of-the-art engines under their
hoods and curtains on their windows.
In the midst of their report on oil drilling in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, for instance, Mantua sixth-graders
Gwendolyn Yao, Erin Hopke, Mark Hou and Dylan Lahiff presented —
along with a slide show and Web pages — a relic from the past: a
diorama. Inside a cardboard box, clay bears walked atop a
wooden-dowel pipeline. The students showed the diorama on the
television monitor, but it was still a learning prop that dated to
their grandparents' school days.
Like the pioneers in nearly every new technology — bicycles,
airplanes, radios — educational innovators say they are constantly
tinkering and learning more from each other than from textbooks or
manuals.
When Kristi Rennebohm Franz, of Sunnyside Elementary School in
Pullman, Wash., created an award-winning curriculum — studying the
environment of a small pond and sharing her students' findings on
the Internet — she had no experience in electronics or computers.
Using the International Education and Resource Network, she and
other teachers found ways to develop lessons in mathematics,
reading, communication and the arts.
Educators have used software to help students understand complex
concepts. "The computer is so valuable in spatial relationships —
modeling of a molecule, for example . . . [or] to see what happens
to the blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay when you change
various parameters, salinity, runoff, pH, etcetera," said Eileen
Steinkraus, coordinator of the magnet program at Montgomery Blair
High School in Silver Spring.
Janet Hudgens, the instructional technology coordinator for
Jamestown Elementary School in Arlington, said she held her breath
when a student teacher created a difficult math exercise for
first-graders. She was exploring fraction problems, something
usually reserved for older children. But the picture-making software
worked.
"Using the technology helped them visualize the concept," Hudgens
said. Teachers acknowledge that technology will not fix every
learning problem, and it is sometimes more cumbersome than old
tools.
David G. Thompson, the technology coordinator at the District's
well-equipped Wilson High School, said he has used computers to
display geometric forms, "but a chalkboard is quicker, easier and
does just as good."
Mantua Elementary has an exceptional ratio of computers to
students, 605 to 886. In some of the upper grades, all students have
an Apple eMate, a green plastic laptop that they keep with them 24
hours a day. But even Newsome Park elementary magnet school in
Newport News, Va. — which is not nearly as well equipped, with 250
computers for 750 students — is way ahead of most schools. Experts
say that is because computers are expensive to buy and maintain and
because it is difficult to find teachers trained in using technology
and even more difficult to train more.
"Teacher training is critical," said Newsome Park Principal Pete
Bender.
Marlin Brown, principal of the technology-centered Truman Middle
School in Fontana, Calif., said training is costly and works only
with teachers "willing to accept technology into their classroom and
willing to learn how to fit it into their instructional processes."
Mantua got a head start when a $600,000 settlement with Texaco
Inc. for a neighborhood oil leak was used to make the school a model
for educational technology. Many other corporate and foundation
sponsors have contributed since, and principal Fernandez keeps a
part-time grant writer on staff.
Teachers at Mantua and other schools at its technological level
say each day is a self-directed tutorial in making computers work in
the classroom. They say they learn more from each other and from
their studentsthan from any training seminar.
Web sites crash. Teleconferences disconnect. Software freezes.
That is part of learning in the new age, teachers say.
Asked what was the most important lesson from his complex and
sometimes frustrating multimedia oil-drilling presentation, Mantua
sixth-grader Gray Ferris thought for a moment.
"We had a lot of computer problems," he said. "What I learned
was, not to trust technology."
Staff writer Liz Seymour contributed to this report.
Reported by Washingtonpost.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com/
11:32 CST
(20010605/WIRES ONLINE, TELECOM, BUSINESS/)
